Some time ago on Hypnothoughts, there was a wonderful discussion on erotic hypnosis and part of that discussion morphed into a bit about the dangers of a client falling love with a hypnotist as well as the phenomena of hypnotists marrying their clients.
One rather well known example of this was specifically mentioned . . . the John Kappas and his famous wife Florence Henderson. There was a comment in the discussion that Kappas was very much in love with Henderson.
I don't think anyone had said John Kappas wasn't head over heels in love with Florence Henderson. I would expect that to have been the case.
This is one of the higher profile cases of a hypnotist who married a client who then became instrumental to his business success . . . but, Kappas certainly isn't the only such case. Quite a few hypnotists out there have married their clients . . . some settling into lifelong loving relationships and some not so much . . . hmmm, just like regular humans.
Certainly, no one has the right to second-guess anyone else's motives or the context of their relationship. Even if we were to ask Henderson – who became a Certified Hypnotherapist years ago – what the context was, assuming she was not self-editing, her response can only be based upon her feelings and interpretation of the circumstances as well as her take on what she's observed or learned of her late husband's thoughts and feelings from the time period . . and that's not particularly fair . . . especially since a single case, even a high profile one, neither confirms nor denies a general trend. We can assume that they loved one another deeply and it doesn't really affect the original point.
While many know the catch-word "transference" more need to brush up on the concept of "counter-transference" which is just as pervasive as one often is part and parcel of the other . . . not belittling anyone's lifelong commitment or relationship, just noting the phenomenon – which is why the licensed professions have "ethical safeguards" in place.
Of course, transference/counter-transference occurs in many relationships, therapeutic or otherwise. However, I would suggest that there is a significant difference between the friend who serves as the shoulder to cry on for another friend but then "falls in love" with the person is rather different from a therapist who is being paid to have an objective helping relationship . . . which in turn is still different from folks who are playing around with erotic aspects of hypnosis for recreational purposes. It's the therapeutic relationship that kicks it all in the pants and signposts that one needs to be very careful about how one treads.
In my opinion.
I certainly would not fault someone's life choices or their emotional connection to another human being . . . but . . . a little education on transference/counter-transference goes a long ways in helping one avoid pitfalls, especially those folks who have a tendency to fall in love at the drop of a hat or the twist of an ankle or the sob into a handkerchief. John Kappas may have found his Florence Henderson and their relationship may have been an extremely valuable one for each of them . . . but there's more than one Florence out there . . . Florence Nightingale, with her syndrome in hand, is ever lurking in the shadows and it's important that therapists understand how she works in order to protect themselves and serve the genuine healing needs of their clients.
One interesting aside on the Kappas-Henderson anecdote is that some have seen Henderson as a volunteer as a hypnotic trance partner in some old HMI training videos and that she seemed sharp, empathetic, and very talented at going into trance – what Dr. Don Gibbons calls experientially gifted and I tend to call a high responder.
In my professional experience both within the theatre and as a hypnotist , I have found that many well-trained or talented actors are hypnotically gifted, especially those who have gone through training programs that have any element of influence from Stanislavski as these programs often incorporate trance exercises, many employ forms of deep trance identification. I work with actors (my undergraduate and first graduate degrees are in communication and theatre) as I do coaching and Trance-Acting workshops specifically for actors and I've experience in professional entertainment. One does not need to be experientially gifted to be a great actor but even the anti-method schools incorporate visualization and control exercises that tend to more readily achieved by folks who are naturally high responders to hypnosis. Sir Laurence Olivier may have been frustrated with Dustin Hoffman's "method" during the filming of Marathon Man but he too used elements of trance within his performance, albeit, his was less about identification and more about control of character.
Henderson is not unique in this respect. I would suggest that if one were to run even a standard hypnotizeability scale (as flawed as it is) on a group of actors, one would find that the percentage of high responders turns out to be much higher than with the general population and when one purposefully designs programs for actors then the responsiveness goes way up.
All the best,
Brian
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Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [brian@briandavidphillips.com]
Hypnotist, Hypnotherapist, Intuitionist, Trance Wizard
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei,
Taiwan
